Structural Analysis of Ag Agglomeration in Ag-based Ohmic Contact to p-type GaN

Abstract

We investigate the crystallographic orientation and strain states of the Ni/Ag ohmic contacts on p-type GaN. The Ag film in the Ni/Ag contact was severely agglomerated during high temperature annealing in air ambient. As a results, after annealing for 24 h, the Ni/Ag contact shows non-linear I-V curve and low light reflectance of ∼21% at 460 nm wavelength. High-resolution X-ray diffraction results show that the interplanar spacing of Ag (111) planes is almost same to that of bilk Ag after annealing for 24 hrs, indicating that the in-plane tensile strain in the Ag film was fully relaxed due to the Ag agglomeration.